How to start cleaning your home using the flylady zone method (FREE printable)

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Cleaning your home can seem to be a very daunting and never ending task. And while it is certainly never ending (sorry to break it to you..), it does not have to be daunting at all!

There are many systems and cleaning routines online. This can make it hard to find out which one works best. And while I know there is no one size fits all, I do believe the FlyLady method is an amazing tool, especially if you are starting out.

What is the FlyLady system?

The fly lady system is a very easy cleaning routine, which will help you to keep the entire house clean and organised. The flylady cleaning system is perfect to get into a habit of cleaning daily and she offers you great tips to accomplish a clean house. Flylady’s system has three major components:

Daily tasks.

These are the tasks that need to be done every day. Flylady has some specific tasks listed that you should consider doing, besides or instead of the things you are doing now:

• Swish and Swipe. This means cleaning the toilet. When you do this every day, your toilet will be a lot cleaner, and it is a lot easier to keep it clean.
• Do a load of laundry. It is so much easier to do one load a day instead of trying to do laundry when you have more time. Check out this post because I did a very detailed post about how to create a laundry routine that works.
• Shine your sink. This means you actually clean your sink every day before going to bed (and don’t forget to clean those kitchen counters). Flylady talks about sink reflections, meaning you have to be able to see yourself in your sink, but not only that, it will also give you a clean kitchen sink every time you come downstairs in the morning. And isn’t it a great feeling to see a clean sink instead of a pile of dirty dishes?
• Dress to shoes. FlyLady is a huge fan of getting dressed all the way to putting on shoes! And I completely agree! As stay at home moms we often think it does not really matter what we look like. The only ones seeing us are our children and husband. But there are two reasons why I am a big fan of getting dressed daily.
  • You want to look your absolute best for your husband! He would love to come home to a wife that put effort into her appearance. It doesn’t have to be a fancy dress and a ton of makeup, but knowing you did your very best to look good for him, will do wonders for your marriage. And an added bonus is your children who are watching you. What a blessing to show your children how much you love their dad and how important it is to do your very best for him? Honestly, try it!
  • You get a lot more done when you are put together. If you wear sweatpants and a cosy shirt, you will feel less excited to get to work and probably feel more like snuggling up on the couch. It’s crazy how much more excited I get to do housework when I put on my apron. Dress yourself for the job! If your children need to open the door for the mailman because you are embarrassed to do it yourself, you might need to reconsider your outfit of choice.
• Make your bed. We have probably all heard this advice before, but it’s an amazing habit to start today. I have struggled with making my bed, because I also wanted to air my bed after sleeping all night. So what I have come up with is a happy medium. I open the covers and let the bed air while I get ready for the day. Once I am ready, I go back into my room and make my bed.

Cleaning Zones

One of the things FlyLady is most famous for, is here the flylade zones. What she did, is basically divide the home into different zones. You move on from your recent zone to a new zone once every few days and after a month you should have completed all the cleaning tasks in your home.

The zones are pretty straight forward and are things like living room, kitchen, master bedroom, laundry room, dining room, front porch and kid’s rooms. You have a few days to complete all the tasks on your to-do lists and then you move on to the next zone.

You will receive a complete zone list in the printable below!

Weekly home blessing

One of my favorite things to do is actually the weekly home blessing. FlyLady recommends doing this on a Monday, but I decided to move it to a Friday. I just love having a clean house before the weekend begins, so it made more sense for our family.

On Friday, I just walk through my list of tasks and make sure the house looks great before my husband comes home. Some of the things I do during the weekly home blessing:

• Change bedsheets
• Vacuum and mop the floors downstairs
• Dust
• Empty trash cans
• Refill all our containers (like flour, oats, granola, etc.)

Now, please note that the weekly home blessing is not the time to do a ton of deep cleaning tasks. It’s meant to be about an hour of blessing your home and family with a clean home for the weekend. The deep cleaning happens when you go through the zones.

What I love about the fly lady system, is that you will be able to clean the whole home, without having to do a lot of things at once. You just clean your house on a regular basis without having it taking much time.

You don’t have to do it all, today

The beauty of Flylady is that you can follow her baby steps. These are small steps you every single day to get you closer to the complete system. You just add in one new habit per day and soon you will have a great cleaning routine.

You can find her baby steps on flylady’s website, but be warned, it is extremely outdated.

Keeping track of it all

One of the great things about Flylady, is her app! She developed a free app that you can download in your app store and keep track of all your daily routines, weekly tasks and progress on your zone cleaning.

It’s really easy in use and a great way to stay on top of it all. But if you are like me, and prefer to keep track of things on paper. Then I have just the thing for you! I created a FREE printable with the daily tasks, zones and weekly home blessing tasks all combined in a beautiful PDF. You can download it by clicking on this link.

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